Focal dystonia

Focal dystonia is a neurological condition that affects a muscle or group of muscles in a specific part of the body, causing involuntary muscular contractions and abnormal postures. For example, in focal hand dystonia, the fingers either curl into the palm or extend outward without control. In musicians, the condition is referred to as musician's focal dystonia, or simply, musician's dystonia. In sports, it is commonly referred to as the yips.

The cause of dystonia is not precisely understood. Misfiring of neurons in the sensorimotor cortex, a thin layer of neural tissue that covers the brain, is thought to cause contractions. This misfiring may result from impaired inhibitory mechanisms during muscle contraction. When the brain tells a given muscle to contract, it simultaneously silences muscles that would oppose the intended movement. It appears that dystonia interferes with the brain's ability to inhibit those surrounding muscles, leading to loss of selectivity.

The sensorimotor cortex is organized as discrete "maps" of the human body. Under normal conditions, each body part (such as individual fingers) occupies a distinct area on these cortical maps. In dystonia, these maps lose their distinct borders and overlap occurs. Exploration of this initially involved over-training particular finger movements in non-human primates, which resulted in the development of focal hand dystonia. Examination of the primary somatosensory cortex in the trained animals showed grossly distorted representations of the maps pertaining to the fingers when compared to the untrained animals. Additionally, these maps in the dystonic animals had lost the distinct borders that were noted in the untrained animals.

Imaging studies in humans with focal dystonia have confirmed this finding. Also, synchronous afferent stimulation of peripheral muscles induces organizational changes in motor representations, characterized both by an increase in map size of stimulated muscles and a reduction in map separation, as assessed using transcranial magnetic stimulation.

The cross-connectivity between areas that are normally segregated in the sensory cortex may prevent normal sensorimotor feedback and so contribute to the observed co-contraction of antagonist muscle groups, and inappropriately timed and sequenced movements that underlie the symptoms of focal dystonia. It is hypothesized that a deficit in inhibition caused by a genetically mediated loss of inhibitory interneurons may be the underlying cause of the deficits observed in dystonia.

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